He walks slowly home through the twilight, past the empty schoolhouse and the noisy beer hall. He thinks about Judith, the warrior Jewess, and about a golden shield. By the time he reaches his low brick house, the sky is dark. Through the door he can hear his sister Klara talking loudly about the price of sugar. He smells fried onions, and his stomach growls. The sky has darkened, and the moon rises.
Inside, he sits at the table, tucks his napkins into his collar, and eats his bread and lentil stew.
“I heard the university might reject your mural,” his mother says. “Does that mean we’ll have to give the money back?”
He shakes his head. “That won’t happen. And if it does, then they can go to hell.”
He sleeps deeply, until the cock crows.
ADELE
1900
Not long after my visit to Klimt’s studio, the maid brought the morning post with a note from Berta.
Gustav Klimt asked me to invite you to our salon next Sunday evening, she wrote. You must have made quite an impression on him.
I arrived ten minutes before the appointed time to find Berta wearing a striped apron tied over her dress.
“I have a few things to finish in the kitchen,” my friend said. “But Klimt is already here.”
The Zuckerkandls’ second-floor apartment wasn’t as lavish as our home, but it was warm and inviting. Berta’s parlor was a bright mix of old and new furnishings, colorful rugs, and floor-to-ceiling shelves overflowing with books. The windows overlooked the Town Hall Gardens, where carriage drivers waited while their charges visited the Hofburgtheater or Café Landtmann. Cigarette smoke and the sound of whinnying horses was part of the apartment’s charm.
I found Klimt sitting in a big blue armchair by the fireplace, sipping a glass of wine. My heart jumped when I saw him. Preparing myself hadn’t helped at all. Like a wild horse, or a hill that ran too fast and steep for the toboggan, I was as equally drawn to him as I was wary.
“I’m glad to see you,” he said, rising.
He was dressed in a creamy suit and rumpled white shirt, and seemed a different man than I’d met before: quiet, even subdued. He kissed my cheeks—or at least, he brushed them with his beard—and asked after Ferdinand.
“The salon life isn’t for him,” I said. “Ferdinand likes to be up at dawn.”
Klimt nodded.
“Early risers accomplish more,” he said. He put his hands in his pockets and rocked on his feet when he spoke. “I’m up every morning at the cock’s crow,” he added.
“I imagined you would keep a more lively schedule.”
“A dull life is good for an artist,” he said, more sincerely than I expected. “I walk with Moll every morning at seven, and many nights I’m asleep before my sisters have cleared the supper table.”
I thought I’d misunderstood him, and begged his pardon.
“I live with my mother and sisters in the house where I grew up,” he said. I’d once heard a rumor to that effect, but hadn’t believed it. “My father and brother are gone, and I take care of everyone now. We’re not a rich family. We still have the bedrooms we had when we were children—to be honest, there’s something comforting about it.”
I told him that nothing had ever comforted me more than the nights when I’d stayed up reading, knowing that my brother Karl was studying in the next room.
“I still have my favorite childhood chair—it’s in my sitting room now,” I said. His expression warmed, encouraging me to go on. I told him that I used to sit in the chaise long past midnight when I was a girl, dreaming of myself as a woman of the world—a scholar, an arbiter of culture, someone important and intelligent.
“And here you are,” he said, as if to say voilà.
“My brother studied anatomy with Emil,” I said, almost without knowing what I was going to say next. “He showed me the veins beneath the skin, the world that’s always moving inside of us. I don’t know if I can explain it.”
In another room, I could hear Berta’s little boy saying good night to his mother, and the nursemaid leading him off to bed.
“But sometimes I feel no time has passed at all.” I heard my own voice swimming in my ears. “It’s as if part of me is still a girl, waiting for my life to begin.”
The front bell rang, and Emil hurried to get the door.
“Does that make any sense to you?” I asked. I felt strangely unchaperoned, and wondered if I had made a mistake by coming without Ferdinand.
“It makes perfect sense to me,” Klimt said.
Something new had come over his face. I could tell he wanted to say more, but the others arrived, and the moment was gone. Carl Moll came directly over to us. If he noticed that Klimt seemed subdued, he gave no indication. He was hearty and loud.
“Are you still looking at your husband’s sentimental Biedermeier landscapes?” Moll asked with something of a guffaw.
“I suppose we are.” I glanced at Klimt. “Although I’d like to have a new landscape for my sitting room.”
“Gustav has a number of them,” Moll said. “You can see them at the Secession, and have your pick. I think Beech Forest is the best.”
I said I remembered his beech trees, and thought they were cheerful and happy.
“That’s because when I’m in the country, I’m cheerful and happy,” Klimt said.
“As am I,” I said.
It was an intimate salon that evening: we were joined by the art historian Franz Wickhoff and his plump wife, Sadie; two professors from the university who supported Klimt; and Serena Lederer, who was married to a wealthy industrialist.
I’d never liked Serena much, mostly because she had a foolish giggle that grated on my nerves. She was a pretty woman, but her rouge was too red and her mouth too pouty. Klimt had recently painted her portrait in the style of Sargent; I hadn’t seen it, but I’d heard she was wearing all white, and that the portrait was held in high regard.
“I’m so glad you enjoyed Paris,” Serena said, giggling. She was drinking a tall flute of champagne with two strawberries floating at the top. “Alma told me you went to the Moulin Rouge.”
“We saw the cabaret,” I said. “But what I really enjoyed was the art.”
“I like the dancing best.” Serena began to sway as if to music. “I hear the whole city is exploding with primitive costumes and exotic dancing.”
Behind her, Klimt smiled and nodded. Then he put the sides of his palms flat against his face, opened his mouth, and mimicked Munch’s silent scream. It seemed we had our own private joke.
“Frau Bloch-Bauer enjoyed seeing the new Symbolists in Paris,” he said with a devilish grin. “But I’m more envious that she went to Montmartre, where the crepes and chocolate are the best I’ve ever had.”
At half past eight we took seats in the parlor, and Berta opened the salon.
“I’m very pleased to welcome Herr Professor Wickhoff,” she said. Her elocution was perfect, and she held the room with an easy grace. “The professor recently defended Herr Klimt’s new mural to the members of the Philosophical Society, and we’re honored to have him share that talk with us tonight.”
I saw Serena smile at Klimt. Berta gave the floor to Professor Wickhoff, and there was a round of polite applause.
“I’d like to address, in particular, the criticism of modern art as ugly,” the professor began. He used note cards, as he might have used at a podium, and spoke for a long time—perhaps much longer than necessary—about primitive man’s fear of all things ugly, which he said had led to idealized beauty in early art.
“Now that we’re evolved far beyond Darwin’s apes, we’re able to see that truth in art is much more important than beauty,” he said. “To use art to help us explore every poetic, spiritual, and physical aspect of life—both pleasant and unpleasant—is the greatest use of our knowledge and creativity. Modern—even ugly—art is worthy of Vienna’s place in history, and we should embrace it.”
“Bravo,” Emil and his colleagues said when
the professor was finished. “Bravo, simply brilliant. The connection between evolution and art is something I’ve never considered before. You’ve opened our eyes, Herr Professor.”
The four scholars immediately fell into a deep conversation about the body and its relationship to art. I tried to follow along as well as I could, but I really wanted to hear what Klimt thought about the professor’s ideas, and how he was feeling about all the criticism of his mural. I tried to catch his eye, but he seemed to sink further and further into the blue chair until he was almost entirely in shadow.
When the professors finally wore themselves out, I turned eagerly as Klimt cleared his throat.
“Thank you, Professors,” he said. “Your words and thoughts are truly appreciated, and I can’t thank you enough for defending me to the critics, and for supporting my work.”
“Tell us about your other murals,” Berta asked.
“I’m continuing with them,” he said. “Medicine will be done by next year, and Jurisprudence after that.”
“And will they be in the same style?” Emil asked.
“That’s what I’ve planned.”
“Then you’ll ignore the critics?” I asked. “That’s brave.”
“I won’t change my work for them,” Klimt said.
We all waited for him to say more, but he sank back in his chair, obviously finished.
“I’m sorry you didn’t speak in more depth about your work,” I told him when we broke for refreshment. “I was hoping you’d respond to the professor’s points.”
We were standing at an elaborate buffet table carefully laid with sweets and savories on silver dishes and heavy pottery that Berta had brought home from her travels in Morocco and Algiers.
“The professor put me to sleep,” Klimt said in a conspiratorial whisper. “I hope I wasn’t snoring. That’s happened to me before.”
I barely stifled a laugh. It came up through my nose in a strangled chortle. He laughed, too, and pretended to rub the sleep from his eyes.
“I’m sorry I haven’t seen you back at my studio,” he said as he filled his plate with scallops, cheeses, and salted almonds. “I thought we’d reached an agreement.”
I lit a cigarette, and took a glass of sherry. Almost all the nerves from our first meetings were gone. I felt that I could tell Klimt the truth.
“I’ll be honest, Herr Klimt, I’m not sure what to think of your sketches or of your proposal,” I said. I saw a flash of myself wrapped in scarves, taking them off one by one while Klimt watched.
“I think you’ll understand, soon enough, why the time for the Judith is right now,” he said. He ate a few of the scallops in quick succession, and washed them down with another glass of wine. Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded journal. Fresh ink smeared on his fingertips as he thumbed the pages.
“A fellow I know at the printing presses got hold of an early copy of tomorrow’s Volksblatt,” he said.
The Volksblatt was a far-right newssheet that espoused the ugly politics of Mayor Karl Lueger.
“Here’s what they’re saying about Philosophy and Professor Wickhoff’s defense of it,” Klimt said.
He began to read quietly, but the others soon gathered around and we all listened in horror.
Klimt’s art is Jewish art, and adulation of such immoral art is destroying the fiber of our city. It should be stopped, and the art should be burned.
The room erupted into shouting. We were all a bit loose from the wine by then, and the cries had a carnal sound. Klimt had to raise his voice to continue.
Klimt’s supporters, especially the members of the Philosophical Society, are of the same indecent Semitic heredity, which we know as the greedy and perverse Jew. If only the Philosophical Society’s membership cards were made of yellow cardboard triangles, and worn on the patrons’ lapels, we would be satisfied. Then, at least, they would be wearing the patches by which, in happier times, Jews were distinguished from Christians. If this practice were to return, we would be able to know the Jews when they walked down the streets and into our public meetings, and we could recognize them before we let them pollute and ruin Vienna’s beauty.
“There you have it,” Klimt said. He looked around the room. “The mayor’s party has spoken.”
“You aren’t even Jewish,” Serena said faintly.
It wasn’t that we’d never heard anti-Semitic screeds before, or that we didn’t know there were men in Vienna who hated the Jews and envied our success. It was the suggestion that Klimt’s art invited punishment, and that it should be destroyed, that outraged us.
“You have to offer a rebuttal,” Wickhoff said.
“The Volksblatt doesn’t deserve a response,” Emil said. “Ignore it, the way we ignore all of their screeds. That’s the only way to stay above it. But we have to address the critics at the university. We can’t expect Klimt to stand up to their criticism alone.”
“I’m going to respond to all of my critics,” Klimt said, when the others let him be heard. “Actually, I’m going to make a number of responses. You’re the first to know what I’m planning.”
“Tell us, Gustav,” Berta said. We were all leaning forward, waiting.
“My answer will be on canvas.” His eyes got a faraway look, just as I’d seen in his studio. “I’m going to paint a beautiful, dangerous, Jewish seductress. And I’m going to paint a gorgeous redhead showing her naked derriere to the crowds.”
Emil Zuckerkandl laughed. Serena let out a giggle. Wickhoff took off his glasses and wiped them studiously on his handkerchief. The others murmured their supporting assent. I flushed, but in the dimly lit room, where everyone was red-faced from excitement and outrage, no one noticed.
As we were leaving, Klimt stopped me in the foyer with a hand on my arm.
“You’ll come now, won’t you?” he asked quietly.
The maid was handing out the coats, and everyone was congratulating Berta on a successful evening.
“Why me?” I kept my voice low.
“Because you feel everything so deeply. And because you inspired it.” His face was intent and close. “When I look at you I see something fierce awakening. You, right now, when you’re discovering your power—that’s what I want to capture.”
“I need to think about it,” I said. I wanted it very much. I wanted it more than I should, and for the wrong reasons—seduction, desire—as much as for the right ones about art, freedom, and my place in Vienna’s society.
“When you come, bring the gold necklace you were wearing at the opening,” Klimt said, as if it was already decided. “If my critics want to see a Jewess in yellow and gold, then I’ll give them one.”
“You said it wouldn’t be a portrait,” I reminded him.
We’d moved into the shadows, and the others were gone. We had only a few minutes before we’d have to pour out the door, where my coachman was waiting.
“There’s the real world, and the world of art as representation,” he said. “It will never be you, and it will always be you. Just like you’ll always be the little girl sitting at the window, looking down into the streets where you’re walking now—a beautiful woman.”
There was no reason to protest. I knew I would go to him, and he knew it, too.
The following week I told the maid to put away my corset, and to help me into my new dress. When she realized the loose frock required neither buttonhooks nor a cinched belt, her face twisted like a question mark.
“You may as well get used to it,” I laughed. “The new style will be everywhere soon enough.”
She slipped the teal dress over my head, and I pulled it down over my chemise; then I piled my hair on top of my head and crowned it with a tiny ruby pin.
The dress hung to the floor in a single, easy layer. The sleeves were wide and loose, with a bell-shaped opening at the wrist. Ferdinand did a double take when I went into the breakfast room.
“What on earth are you wearing?” he asked.
“It’s from Emili
e Flöge’s dress shop,” I said. “Do you like it?”
I spun around slowly.
Ferdinand had been to my bedroom twice the week before. He always told me to expect him, and arrived fresh from the bath in a belted robe and house slippers. He was gentle and tender, kissing me on the mouth and whispering my name. He thanked me when he was finished, and said he hoped we would have a child soon. I always told him I hoped we would, too. It was truly what I wanted. But I also wanted more.
“Berta had one made just like it in another color,” I said. Beneath the dress I could feel my legs, my waist, the breath moving in my lungs.
“You will be quite a pair walking along the Ring together,” Ferdinand said, smiling as he spooned up the last of his soft-boiled eggs.
There was a pile of leather portfolios beside his morning newspapers, and luggage on the landing. Ferdinand had business at the sugar factories in Moravia, and the carriage was being prepared for the six-hour journey.
“Before you go, Ferry, I’d like to talk with you about something,” I said lightly. “Do you remember Klimt’s landscapes at the Secession show?”
I knew he’d hardly looked at them the night of the opening, but he nodded for me to go on.
“After Kraus’s review and the other attacks against Klimt, we all think it’s our duty to support the Secessionists. Especially Klimt. The university is threatening to reject the mural, and even to cancel the others. If he loses the support of the academic establishment, he’ll need new patrons.”
“Who is we?” he asked.
“The Zuckerkandls, the Lederers, and us. We talked about it at the salon—it’s our responsibility. And we have the means,” I added. It was all true. Everything I said was absolutely true.
“It sounds fine, Adele,” he said. He put his napkin on the table and pushed back his chair. “We’ll talk about the landscape when I get back. I’ll be gone for four nights, maybe five if there are things to attend at the factory. I hope you’ll find a way to amuse yourself while I’m away.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I think I’ll look at some of Klimt’s paintings while you’re gone.”
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